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Does an ‘Apple’ a day keep the Android away?

With over 1.08 Billion Smartphone users Worldwide, the ‘mobile phone’ has become an interface to the Internet. The issues of access, power and control associated with these Smartphone’s although can be accredited to the contest between Locked appliances, such as the Apple iPhone and Generative platforms, as seen with the Android platform, where, Zittrain states “as time passes, the brand names on each side will change, but the core battle will remain.”

It has been somewhat indoctrinated in society that to be ‘hip’ you must carry around an iPhone. In all honesty I myself have conformed to this idea, where being surrounded by a community using anything and everything beginning with an ‘i’, makes it a little difficult to venture out and seek new innovations.

The iPhone, although, is deceivingly restrictive, as Apple controls the operating system, the applications market and simply the things you can do with the phone. So here the questions lie:

Are you fine with the idea that Apple controls every choice or action undertaken on your iPhone?

Does this close, tethered system confine how you wish to set up your phone or merely how you choose to use your product?

Let’s just say, after learning of the closed nature of the iPhone, I have found the Android far more appealing. Due to the generative nature of the Android, the product presented is merely connectivity, allowing consumers and prosumers to be apart of this open eco system, through sharing and creating content/codes and rooting. Instagram, which happens to be my chosen media platform, continues to embrace technological convergence, recently announcing its plans to possibly take the ‘giant leap’ from iOS to Android.

So does an ‘Apple’ a day keep the Android Away? By this phrase I simply imply the possibility of the iPhones’ market saturation being detrimental to the success of the Android. This statement, however, is by no means accurate. Due to the iPhones inability to allow consumer freedom and creativity it has struggled to reach that of the Androids market share, being 46.9%, leaving the Apple product to linger at a low 28.7%. Smartphone’s, nonetheless, will continue to harness technological convergence and the flow of content across media platforms, where The fact of the matter is which option will you choose; a locked appliance or a generative platform? The decision is in your hands.